


the kids aren’t alright

by themundaneweirdo



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Bill Denbrough has an older sister, Derry is Terrible, F/M, Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Flashbacks, Gen, Horror, Implied that Richie likes Bill’s older sister, POV Female Character, Pennywise (IT) is His Own Warning, Sad Ben Hanscom, Sad Beverly Marsh, Sad Bill Denbrough, Sad Eddie Kaspbrak, Sad Ending, Sad Mike Hanlon, Sad Richie Tozier, Sad Stanley Uris, She feels guilty about Georgie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themundaneweirdo/pseuds/themundaneweirdo
Summary: I should’ve been with Georgie.Or, Bill Denbrough has an older sister.





	the kids aren’t alright

**Author's Note:**

> It took me months to pick this back up. 
> 
> I basically listened to Fall Out Boy’s “The Kids Aren’t Alright” on repeat. That song was meant for these kids. 
> 
> Not proof read, all and any mistakes are my own.

Summer isn’t too unbearably hot, not with the quarry and the water hose. It’s usually quiet in the small town, but rowdy in the hot midday, and no louder than a rumble of voices and bodies by the darkened evening. It’s easy to just drink or smoke the day away, and then dance into night until the law dogs show. Sometimes they don’t come, too tired with their monotone jobs as babysitters for the criminals of Derry, and they kick back into their recliners and sleep. And so the wild teenage youth of the town rambles on, drunk out of their minds and on edge from fear of being caught.

And then there’s the even younger hellions of Derry. The preteens and the actual teenagers that are still too young to be with the cool crowd. They all usually run together in this town, nothing but different faces and names, but they always have a sort of childish look to them. Maybe it’s their hair or their style choice, or sometimes it’s just them, immature jokes and too naive for their own good. Stupid middle schoolers with their dicks stuck in the dirt, running around with their heads full of air and their bellies full of soda and shit they call food. 

Mothers and fathers don’t do shit, too busy cheating and hiding their extra marital affairs, sheltering their youngsters and showering them in toys, television, and sugary sweets. Men going with other men, women conspiring to leave their husbands and take their brain-dead kids, divorce papers causing penniless pockets and scrounging parents. Half of them dehumanized salesmen that can’t wipe the drool off their chins and the other half are petty housewives who swoon over teenage boys doing yard work, the ironic twist of life. Marriage takes so much, children take more, and an act of selfishness takes the most. 

Rumors spread quick, like weeds in the summer, and it’s not too long before everyone in this county and the next knows your life story. Some of that back-water, little town shit, like Willy’s a drop out because he’s too busy chasing skirts, Johnny’s a queer because he’s never even looked at a girl, and April’s pregnant because she spends too much time at the diner with the Bowen boys. It’s horrible some of the stuff whispered under people’s breath at church, spread like wild fire as the youngsters pick up their guardians dirty mouth, even more so with how true it is. Johnny might like boys and April might be pregnant, but the bullshit trash mouths of Derry can fuck off if that’s all they have to say instead of their Holy gospel prayers. 

I haven’t exactly figured out what’s so appealing to gossip, it’s just he-said and she-said shit, nothing worth repeating. I go to school with half the whore’s that smear their slurs and lies across this town, lipstick stains above phone numbers and addresses, and it’s not too difficult to pin point who started what. Julie likes to start cheating rumors, usually about that Carter boy’s girlfriend because she likes him so much, followed by Barbara’s claims of our math teacher black mailing her into a sexual thing just so she can pass the class, but everyone in town knows no man in his right mind would put their dick near that saved and sanctified up tight screamer. 

Ronnie tells me a lot about how the stank cunts from school are slowly circling the drain while we’re out for summer, most of them drunk on some long-dicked John that leaves as soon as they get a spin on the ride. He and I split beers and cigarettes in his back yard before his old man gets home and bitches about the bills on the table, although half of them aren’t even bills, just letters from the family. But, my feet are dust as soon as I hear the old truck come down the street, over fences and past toddlers playing in their back yard sand pits and playgrounds that cost more than my house. 

Speaking of which, isn’t too much different from a funeral home. The place might not have caskets and old women crying while talking about a certain type of wood, but with the way my parents move about nowadays, they might as well be digging their own plot six feet under. It’s quiet all the time, mundane breakfast which consists of cereal for me and Bill and coffee for my parents, then awkward an lunch of dry sandwiches and sour lemonade, and finally dark doorways and quiet sobbing from mom’s room. I don’t even think I’ve heard or seen dad breathe in the time that’s passed between last year and now, since the joke of police force just chalked the whole thing up to a missing child. 

Missing. More like dead and decaying in the barrens. 

The summer of 1988 went by my face way too harshly, like I had been slapped between my fourteenth and fifteenth birthday. One day I was young and stupid, chasing Bill and his snot nosed friends while Georgie ran along with me, and the next, I suddenly only had one brother and two wrecked parents. The town took notice for maybe three weeks, four if you count that last week I didn’t come home and my folks nearly died all over again. I honesty to God didn’t want to go back to that place, my home, but it had transformed into a constant reminder that nothing will ever be the same. I remember the feeling the day before it all came down, what I was doing, who I was with, and who I should’ve been watching. 

The weather was rainy, heavy enough for rubber boots and a raincoat, but I had only dressed in a thin shirt and jeans, so by the time I managed to run to Corey Duggars, I was soaked to the bone. I went to his because his dad had bought him a while case of strawberry wine, about twelve bottles, so he decided to split it between himself, me, Ronnie, and the Boatwright brothers. We all kicked back by the fireplace at Corey’s house, drying ourselves while laughing and carrying on about summer and what we planned to do before the school bell came back. 

The Boatwright’s family, the rich folks with the big ole mansion with a metal gate, had a getaway planned for the twins, but even they seemed bored with the idea. Probably just some beach resort Tony had said like it was nothing, his brother Tommy elbowing him because, oh, he forgot. They were amongst the poor people. 

Corey wanted to sleep and eat, maybe swim and catch him a summer skirt before he had to be faithful to Rhonda again. She was away with her grandparents in Hawaii, but she sent post cards to him, he liked to show me and Ronnie. He might not have been the most faithful, but he said he doubted Rhonda was either, but we all knew her, and we also knew little miss Derry wouldn’t spread her legs for some hotel employee. 

While he finished his first bottle, Ronnie said he just wanted to relax and do stupid shit. The usual for him and me. Ronnie had this idea of sleeping in the house on Neibolt, but we all shot it down with a quickness so fast, his head almost spun. No one, besides that crazy ass Hockstetter, would even go near that house, and I knew what he did in that place. We all knew what happened there, and heard the rumors,and no matter how stupid and childish they seemed, they left us all shaking in our shoes and sweat would break out on our foreheads. 

I left not too long after that, the boys zoning out with the alcohol warmth and hot air, so the rest of my portioned bottles were in a paper bag Corey gave me, carried dry under the umbrella I swiped before leaving. I was surely fucked, especially going back home tipsy with more alcohol when I was supposed to be watching my brothers. Maybe, I thought, if I don’t get into too much trouble, I can stash the wine and keep up for Bill’s next sleep over. The idea of Richie, Stan, and Eddie getting tipsy, probably drunk with their age, put a pep in my step, and I was nearly to my street when a cop car cane zooming by. 

That was the beginning of the end. 

And now, a year later, I still can’t remember the rest of that afternoon correctly. Bill tells me it’s better not to, and when my twelve year old brother sits across from me at dinner, eyes wide with youth and yet hollow with age, I wonder if it really is better not to remember. I can see bits and pieces in my dreams, some of them don’t make sense, and some of them feel so real it’s like I can reach out and grad Georgie in the last happy morning and stop him from ever leaving the house. No matter what it is, I wake up in the bright morning, feeling even more tired and drained than the night before, like some reverse mental shit.

But, no matter how different it feels now, it’s still summer, and I’m supposed to be in Ronnie’s backyard, drinking, smoking, cutting up and making so much noise the old lady that lives next to him calls the police for a noise complaint. My hair is supposed to be cut short so I don’t sweat so much, skins should be only a little sun burnt and my parents should be complaining how I’m never home and how Bill and Georgie miss me. I’m supposed to be half naked, in nothing but overalls and no bra or underwear, lounging in quarry while Bill and the boys swim because when is there a better time to have my tits out? I should be reading Richie for his little crush on me, I should be making sure Eddie takes his pills, and be sure that Bill and Stan don’t get hurt while jumping off the big rocks, and, and, and– 

I should’ve been with Georgie. I should’ve planted my selfish ass in my moms over decorated living room and listened to the boy while he rambled on about his toys and their names. He loved those toys, and he gave them love and attention, gave them individual names and characteristics, made them special. I should’ve told Bill to stop playing hooky and come down stairs with us, and I could’ve made food for us, I could’ve played games and laughed and enjoyed myself so my more than I ever have or will at Corey Duggar’s house, drinking wine and wasting away. I should’ve spent time with him because if only I’d known he’d be taken without warning, be stolen away and never returned, then maybe he would still be here.

Maybe I wouldn’t be walking out of the sewers with Bill attached to my side, Richie, Eddie, Stan, and some other kids that I don’t even know their names trailing behind me. I wouldn’t have cuts and scratches on me, the blood drying and making my clothes itch. And I certainly wouldn’t be crying with the confirmation that I really do only have one brother now. 

“Fucking clown,” I say, sniffing at tears spill over my cheeks, and I pull Bill closer.

**Author's Note:**

> I may do a sequel after Chapter 2 comes out despite me knowing what happens, but I know for certain that I already have my OFC a name, backstory, and love interest. 
> 
> It’s Richie because let’s be honest, Richie would so go for Bill’s older sister and wouldn’t stop until he got her.


End file.
